I am planning to purchase a backup drive to replace my current liteon burners in the case of unexpected failure.

Now that LITEON is moving to using the NEC chips and not the MTK, I was wondering if the iHAS324-98, which obviously is based on the Optiarc 720S if I am not mistaken, and NEC chipset, will I be able to use bitsetting to mark booktypes on both DL AND DVD+R ? I need it for DVD+R as well.

Also, will I be able to use “clear learned media” just as I would with liteon ? Are there tools out there for that effect ?

When I read all those modded firmwares, for the iHAS324, does it support ONLY the liteon versions or equally for both the true liteon with MTK chipsets and the ones with the NEC chips.

My decision to buying the iHAS324-98 is based on whether I will be able to use bitsetting for DVD+R media

Thanks for your response. I have the good old 18A1P writers and they do a good job burning my discs. Will this model mentioned above (the 324-98) based on NEC do quality writes, because I only use YUDEN +R and -R 16x media and I write at 8x. Does the 324-98 handle these discs well ?

Also what about other OptiArc based drives, are they all “moddable” to allow bitsetting to +R ROM ?

Sorry to dredge up an old post but I figured it’s better than starting a new thread:

I’m about to purchase an iHAS324-98 today from Fry’s (they’re on sale with a $15 MIR so final cost about $15 or so), and I haven’t found any info here except this thread about this particular exact drive.

Am I to understand it’s a rebadged Optiarc 7420S and is compatible with the firmwares posted on the link that Liggy provided?

I do want to make sure I get the latest and best performing firmware, obviously, but I thought I’d take a chance and ask the question before I head out a few hours from now and make the purchase.

This iHAS324-98 model doesn’t have much info about it, and I don’t want to screw it up with a bad flash.

Thanks for any and all assistance.

ps
Can anyone comment on the drive’s burning quality? I’ve looked through the thread with all the iHAS burns of the drives in the iHAS324 class but, since this appears to be a different one with NEC firmware, I don’t have a clue… thanks again.

The current ones from Fry’s is a iHAS324-98B, indicating a MediaTek ‘B’ series chipset. I know because I bought one just like it. To be sure, as long as you check the side of the box where the serial number is at, there will indicate if it’s a ‘B’ (MediaTek) or ‘Y’ (NEC) chipset. The 7240S has been out of mass production for quite some time, if it were a NEC, it would be a 7260S.